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Maytag Virgin

Audrey Cefaly

Customer Rating:

Full Length Play, Dramatic Comedy

1m, 1f

ISBN: 9780573706202

"Maytag Virginis a witty and earnest meditation on how people connect even when they feel they’re not ready, and what it is to move on while honoring and remembering the things, and people, who came before." - DC Theatre Scene

PERFORMANCE GROUP

Maytag Virgin follows Alabama school teacher Lizzy Nash and her new neighbor, Jack Key, over the year following the tragic death of Lizzy’s husband. The play explores the ideas of inertia and self-enlightenment, and the bridge between the two.

"Cefaly makes her characters rich and mixed-up enough for us to build some real affection for them [...] It's sweet stuff." - The Washington Post, Read More

"Audrey Cefaly’s unflinchingly honest story is one no one should miss; take your mom and ‘dem and don’t miss it!" - DC Metro Theatre Arts, Read More

"Maytag Virgin is a witty and earnest meditation on how people connect even when they feel they’re not ready, and what it is to move on while honoring and remembering the things, and people, who came before." - DC Theatre Scene, Read More

"[...] a heart-warmer of a play [...] Cefaly writes with sympathy and a finely-sharpened wit." - Broadway World, Read More

Maytag Virgin premiered at the Quotidian Theatre in Bethesda, MD as a part of the inaugural Women's Voices Theatre Festival in October 2015 under the direction of Audrey Cefaly.

Characters

CASTING

1m, 1f

CASTING ATTRIBUTES

Role(s) for Black Actor(s), Strong Role for Leading Woman (Star Vehicle)

Audrey Cefaly

Cefaly is published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus (two volumes of Best American Short Plays), and Applause Books. She is an outspoken proponent of silence in story-telling and has authored numerous articles on the topic of playwriting for HowlRound and Samuel French’s Breaking Character Magazine.
Cefaly’s play THE GULF won the 40th Annual Samuel French OOB Festival and was later adapted into ...

Both Lizzy and Jack “go against type,” or challenge conventional expectations, in really sensitive, surprising, and deeply truthful ways.

Lizzy is a woman whose heart has been hurt, yet she emerges from that pain, and somehow her character arc left me with a soulful sense of uplift I did not see coming.

The character of Jack really moved me as well. He’s “a good man”: sympathetic, sensitive, smart. He too harbors hurts, but that has not impeded his emotional intelligence—which right there distinguishes him from a lot of other local men who might have moved in next door to Lizzy. In Jack’s character arc the play seems to be modeling a sort of man who not only turns out to be surprisingly good for Lizzy but who the world could use more of.

Maytag Virgin comes from a deep place of emotional truth-telling as well as a mountain of writerly gifts. It is truly a beautiful work.

Jack Cannon3/7/2017 3:04 PM

Both Lizzy and Jack Key have lost their spouses to death and now find themselves living next door with their back porches and lives staring each other in the face. Without a fence separating their homes they are more than destined to cross each other’s path daily. It is through this unadorned, straightforward craftsmanship that Audrey Cefaly quietly exposes the vulnerabilities, hurt, and fears of her two love-torn characters as they, like a quiet Southern river, bend and meander towards the beautiful and poignant discovery that love taken away can be found again. Cefaly writes sparingly, with wit and empathy, leaving the inner world of her characters to be discovered and revealed through the emotional struggles and choices of the actors portraying the two tour de force roles. Maytag Virgin is ideal for professional and community theaters alike needing a small play with powerful, entertaining performances. As a romantic comedy, the play is filled with both laughs and tears that will delight audiences with its humor, simplicity and heartwarming, heart-expanding, feel-good conclusion.